Josée Timschack
Family Friend
Tribute to a Friend, Ruth
Ruth, my friend, with such a free, audacious spirit.
I had the pleasure of meeting Ruth (and Jack, David, Celia) in 1962...(May 1968 was still sleeping in France) and seeing her often. Life is not always a long, quiet river. Ruth often referred to the survivors of the Soviet Gulag camps to remind us of courage...she was right.
I read (LA Times 1987) a long, laudatory and "perfidious" article, about Ruth's career, her professional successes on the radio ("a strong character and strong convictions"), nothing about the courage that very early on showed originality of this talent. Without this deep knowledge of the arts, of world politics, of its questions, of its curiosity, for everything and for everyone and above all "of its taste for others", i.e., its humanism, none of that...
I know the generosity of Ruth, a generosity of heart and spirit that the little girl from the Bronx kept all her life, and which for me is the deep part of my friend Ruth, American, the friend that I love and have loved without reserve. A worthy person.
